Draft Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes (Amendment) Order 2024

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 General Committees

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The draft order, as the Minister rightly says, is very technical in nature and will make few changes to the 2023 order. For the most part, it will simply bring the whole of our country under one set of rules by correcting the understandable omission of Northern Ireland from the original order. In the silo in which they are presented, the changes being made are broadly uncontroversial. The official Opposition will therefore not seek to divide the Committee today.

What is slightly more controversial, however, is the limit of the order and the wider questions that it poses about the Government’s approach to the ZEV mandate, our domestic automotive sector and the transition to de-fossilised and decarbonised forms of private transport. The Labour party had previously been clear that it wished to reverse the Conservative Government’s practical, pragmatic and sensible delay from 2030 to 2035 of the banning of the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, yet the draft order will do no such thing: it leaves the 2035 date intact. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government are leaving the 2035 date in place, which would be sensible, or whether we are set to see more orders coming forward? If so, will they come with a wider debate in the main Chamber?

What of hybrids? There is much talk in the media, but little actual legislation or rule making is coming forward. I gently ask the Minister to give the Committee and the wider House clarity in that regard.

Certainty is important for consumers and manufacturers alike, but the draft order will give neither any confidence about the detail of the Government’s intended direction of travel. That uncertainty is playing out in the real world: in real sales numbers, in real demand, particularly for battery electric vehicles, and in uncertainty for our great innovators at home and overseas, where they are pioneering technologies around other forms of fuel, hydrogen and synthetics.

It is a reality that consumers are turning their backs on battery electric vehicles. Taking fleet sales out of the picture, EVs are just not selling. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders says that year-to-date private battery electric vehicle demand remains down 6.3%. Robert Forrester, chief executive of Vertu Motors, has observed that manufacturers are delaying deliveries of cars until next year, fearing that immediate deliveries would cause them to exceed the Government’s set quotas. In July, Stellantis announced that it would review its manufacturing footprint in the United Kingdom.

Can the Minister explain why the draft order does so little? It is just tinkering at the edges, with no practical steps to solve the real-world problems that we face. Can he confirm what the Government’s actual plans are to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel internal combustion engine cars? Is there even a plan? What confidence can he give to motorists and car manufacturers alike that the Government value—in a de-fossilised, decarbonised way—the freedom to drive?